Obama says picking Joe Biden was the “single best decision” he has made

It’s great fun accurately quoting Vice President Joe Biden, and we should continue doing it through Election Day, in part because it makes our next Vice President, Paul Ryan, look even more competent by comparison.

But ultimately, people will vote the top of the ticket, President Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney, so Biden critiques should consistently invoke Obama’s failed policies, lest we fall for another distraction in the Obama camp’s desperate efforts to talk about anything other than the no growth, no jobs Obama Economy.

Importantly, every Biden discussion should begin and end with this gem:

Biden’s bigotry and incompetence reflect on the man who selected him, Barack Obama.

And certainly, compared to Obamacare, the failed Stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, giving Government Motors to the UAW, amnesty, letting Iran build nukes, his war on US energy production, and so many other decisions, picking Biden may have been Obama’s least damaging decision.

But with Obama seeking four more years to finish us off, er, finish the job, let’s reintroduce into the campaign past Biden statements that reflect on Obama’s judgment today.

Bigotry and race-baiting.

“[Romney’s] gonna put y’all back in chains.” (August 14, 2012)

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” (Talking about Obama, January 31, 2007)

“[In Delaware,] you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” (June 16, 2006)

“I spent last summer going through the Black sections of my town, holding rallies in parks, trying to get Black men to understand it is not unmanly to wear a condom, getting women to understand they can say no, getting people in the position where testing matters. I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS.” (June 28, 2007)

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation. Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” (Biden at an Alexandria, Virginia event to promote more government deficit spending, July 16, 2009)

“And I have not bent the law, but I have let imagination take hold in some places where I think it’s consistent with the spirit of the law. Is that the best way of saying that? Yes. I should stop.” (Biden, on helping state and local officials secure Stimulus Bill handouts, September 3, 2009)

“[W]hat Biden quickly discovered was that Obama’s policies were awfully thin, not terribly specific, more rhetoric than substance. Right after the convention, at a prep session . . . Biden listened to a bunch of the Obamans talk him through the Democratic ticket’s position on taxes. ‘That’s our policy? That’s our policy?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Well, it’s your campaign. I’ll say what you want me to say.’” (Game Change, p. 411, about September 2008)

“I cannot believe that a Frenchman visiting Kiev went back home and told his colleagues he discovered something and didn’t say he discovered the most beautiful women in the world. That’s my observation. It’s certain you have so many beautiful women.” (Biden to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev, Ukraine, shortly after visiting a memorial to the millions of Ukrainians killed by Stalin’s forced famine, July 21, 2009)

“I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for a long time. But it’s always been the same teacher.” (Referring to his wife at a National Teacher of the Year reception, April 26, 2010)

Personal greed

“Over the decade, the Bidens reported a total of $3,690 in charitable donations, or 0.2% of their income.” (USA Today, September 12, 2008)
“Americans who earn more than $150,000 on average gave about 2.2%.” (That’s 11 times what the Bidens gave; Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008)

Biden charges US taxpayers rent for a cottage the Secret Service uses to protect him next to his waterfront home in Delaware. (2009 – Present)

The just plain goofy

“You know, I’m embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number? I should have it in front of me and I don’t.” (Biden forgetting the Recovery.gov website address (which is recovery.gov) during a CBS News interview to promote Recovery.gov, February 25, 2009)

“[The Prime Minister of Ireland] knows a lot about it, his mom lived in Long Island for 10 years or so, God rest her soul and—although, she’s . . . wait, your mom’s still, your mom’s still alive—is your dad passed. . . . God bless her soul! I gotta get this straight.” (Biden, while standing next to Ireland’s Prime Minister as he suggests the man’s living mother is dead, March 17, 2010)

“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places right now…. When one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.” (Biden on NBC’s Today Show, discussing the Swine Flu, April 30, 2009)

“Chuck, stand up, Chuck, let ‘em see you.” (Biden urging paraplegic State Senator Chuck Graham to get up out of his wheelchair, September 9, 2008. Biden shortly realized what he had done, adding: “Oh, God love ya’. What am I talking about?”

“I ask you as a personal favor — break your neck for this man. Because you’ve got something really going here.” (Biden, at a Virginia fundraiser for the Democratic candidate for Governor, July 16, 2009. The Democrat went on to lose by a record 18 points.)

“Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie’s Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether . . . [the Bush] administration has made them better off in the last eight years. [The] people in my neighborhood, they get it.” (Biden, October 2, 2008, referring to Katie’s Restaurant, which closed in the 1980’s)

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’” (Biden to Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News, September 22, 2008. Of course, FDR wasn’t actually President when the stock market crashed, and TV had not yet been invented.)

Evidence the Democrats’ bench is painfully thin

“Still, right up until the moment he rendered his decision as final, Obama kept chuckling, shaking his head, and thinking, I can’t believe I’m picking Biden.” (Game Change, p. 342, on Obama’s selection of Biden as his running mate in August 2008)

“Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. . . . Quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me.” (Biden, September 10, 2008)

“How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?” (Obama to his staff, October 20, 2008, as reported in 2010’s Game Change)

Even Biden gets it right sometimes

“Biden had been hanging around with the reporters in the back of his new plane, running his mouth about how he was more qualified to be president than Obama.” (The Democrat Media kept this huge news private from voters until it was disclosed in 2010’s Game Change, p. 411, about mid-September 2008)